Miscellaneous

Shares of Tesla Motors soared nearly 8 percent today after the company disclosed it had accelerated production of its electric vehicles in the third quarter.

In a letter to shareholders, CEO Elon Musk and Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahufa said the company had reached a "fundamental turning point" making the transition to a mass production car company that was able to pass through a proverbial "valley of death."

"Overall, I feel Tesla was really kind of past the point of high risk. Several months ago, I said I thought that the coming several months would … Read more

A third-party accessories maker has finally been given the green light by Apple to make products for the Lightning connector.

Belkin said today that it will introduce an all-in-one car charger and a charge-and-sync dock for Apple's newest connector within the next couple weeks.

Apple in September unveiled the iPhone 5's new cable, dubbed Lightning, that replaces the 30-pin connector Apple has used since 2003. The iPad Mini and the newest version of the iPad use Lightning, and it's likely Apple will continue updating its gadgets to include the new connector. Since introducing the connector, Apple has … Read more

Hewlett-Packard has increased its investment in the Linux Foundation.

The organization, which aims at increasing adoption of Linux across the world, announced today that HP has decided to upgrade its Linux Foundation membership from Gold to Platinum. By doing so, HP will now hold a seat on the Linux Foundation's board of directors. The company will also play a role in the Linux Foundation's initiatives, work groups, labs, and events.

HP has been making open-source supporters happy with WebOS, a formerly closed platform that it turned open source. HP didn't say exactly why it decided to up … Read more

Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center is a legendary and often misunderstood place. Once Xerox's outpost in Silicon Valley, it's now a separate company within Xerox, and it focuses on applied R&D. PARC is where you'll find the beginnings of the personal computer, LAN, voice command, and laser printing. Today its work branches far beyond computing, with a strong emphasis on ethnography, the study of what people do and how they do it.

I'd met Xerox CTO Sophie Vandebroek before, but was curious to see how things were going on this 10th anniversary of … Read more

Just before Hurricane Sandy started to pummel the East Coast this week, Microsoft managed to grab the tech headlines with the official debut of Windows Phone 8.

The launch of the next-generation mobile operating system, which came on the heels of last week's splashy Windows 8 debut, got people talking with its support for multicore processors and mobile payments, and its tighter relationship with the Windows platform. And as with Windows 8, Window Phone 8 uses live tiles instead of icons. (Though Microsoft is already being sued for those tiles, over patent-infringement claims.)

So far, Windows Phone 8 has … Read more

A new kind of digital activist has emerged from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy this week -- the hurricane hacker.

This weekend, an in-person "Sandy CrisisCamp" will take place in Boston, cities on the West Coast, and even New Zealand. The events are basically set up as cross between a hack-a-thon and a workshop where geeks come together to design and code projects that can help local communities prepare for and cope with crisis.

Among some of the projects CrisisCampers will be working on are crowdsourcing tools to categorize images for building damage, allowing FEMA to prioritize its efforts, and a simple Google doc that attempts to keep track of all the sources of Sandy recovery data in a single place.… Read more

Smartphone batteries may soon last twice as long -- if an MIT spinoff's power amplifier technology lives up to its promise.

The power amplifier is one of the most power-hungry pieces of hardware in a phone. It converts electricity into radio signals and consumes power in two basic modes: standby and output signal for sending out digital data. Such a chip wastes more than 65 percent of its energy, according to a report in the MIT Technology Review, and the only way to make it more efficient is by reducing the power used in standby. … Read more

It begins with: "This is the apocalypse."

A video shot by YouTube member Imasharky seems to offer a very realistic flavor of the drama and fear engendered by Hurricane Sandy.

Trees crash down on cars. Fires ignite. Fear abounds. (Yes, the word "s***" does appear a couple of times, but is that surprising?)

Sharky describes himself as a 16-year-old from the "good old Empire State" and Mashable was first to spot his film's dramatic nature.

Some might find it moving that -- in the face of so much destruction -- the family reacts … Read more

Two surprises for "Star Wars" aficionados today: George Lucas has sold off LucasFilm to the Walt Disney Company for $4.05 billion, and a new "Star Wars" movie, Episode VII, is in early development.

Disney CFO Jay Rasulo said during a conference call this afternoon that "Star Wars" episode 7 will "take the place of our tent pole [film] in 2015."… Read more